World Doula Week 2021
This is World Doula Week 2021.
In honor of that, I want to first acknowledge that the word “doula” is a newer one, and a controversial word too. But it’s the one that stuck. By any other name, though, the role of human-attending-another-human-through-the-process-of-birth and postpartum is as old as time itself.
Doula work is a calling, not just a profession.
I received my calling early in life, as a teenager. And I dismissed birth work as “weird”. It wasn’t until much later, when I had my first child at the age of 23 (nearly 24) that my calling towards birth became undeniable. And I wished I had heeded it earlier, because now I had a small child to take care of and being a birth doula didn’t seem very practical!
But the universe works in mysterious ways. I was laid off from my day job and took it as an opportunity to enroll in a training and certification program for childbirth education. For that I needed to attend some births, so I offered up my green, but eager self as a birth attendant. I learned by doing, that I had a strong intuitive sense of how to be a calming, grounding presence for birthing people and their partners in the birth space.
By the time I completed my childbirth educator certification program, I had attended several births and decided to make it official by taking a birth doula training program.
That was 13 years, and nearly 200 births ago.
I use my knowledge and my intuition to meet my clients wherever they are. They might be excited, anxious, casual, fearful, ambivalent, curious, unsure, traumatized, lit up, or any other state or emotion. I work with every last bit of it to help a birthing person feel as held and confident as they can be.
In addition, I couldn’t imagine doing the work I do without the support and companionship of the many, many other amazing doulas and birth workers that I am privileged to know. I feel the warmth of their light and the love they too project into the world.
Do you have a story about your doula that you’d like to share?
